Monthly Archives: October 2010

One of my favorite things in learning Hindi is when I’m asking someone for help with words and they think I’m asking for instructions for doing the actual deed I want to do. For example…

I want to put plants in our apartment and when I’m planning a trip to the local nursery when I get back from Diwali. I was with one of my language helpers named Kirti trying to learn the words for things like “plant”, “soil”, “pot”, “dirt”, “fertilizer” and some of the questions I will want to ask the shopkeeping at the nursery. Questions like, “Does this plant flower? If so, when?”

Kirti misunderstood in a way that often happens around here – she thought I was asking her how to keep a potted plant. She began, “First, Sarah, you need a pot.”
She paused here to draw a diagram of a pot.
“Next, fill it up about half way or three-fourths of the way with dirt. You can buy that at the nursery.”
Another pause to add dirt to the diagram.
“Now you should put in the fertilizer and the plant.”
Further scribbling into the picture.
Mercifully, she didn’t draw out her next instructions on filling in the rest of the dirt and watering!

This has happened in so many different areas, I wonder if my Hindi-instructing friends really believe I’m this incompetent. They’ve instructed me in the basics of hygiene, cooking (“don’t let it burn”), and numerous other topics. Often the instructions are accompanied by a question like, “Okay, so you don’t know how to take a bath?” or “Didn’t your mother teach you how to cook?”

Sometimes explaining that I know how to do something, just not the way to talk about it in Hindi works… sometimes it doesn’t. I guess a little refresher in the basics never hurt anyone…

Most of my afternoon was spent today traveling around on the back of a motorbike going from one government office to the next trying to find someone with the proper ranking and motivation to help me complete my registration. In the middle of the craziness, I had a lot of waiting time to think and some random thoughts floated by. Like…

“Wow! I didn’t know every muscle in my calves, thighs, hips, abdomen and left arm could all be simultaneously tensed! Indian women (who do this all the time) must have the strongest core muscles in the world! And who knew my ankles had so many muscles with which I can wrap my foot all the way around the foot stand!”While riding on the motorbike “sidesaddle”, the only proper way a woman would ride with a man on a motorbike! Both of your legs are on one side of the bike, your feet propped up on a metal bar and your left arm grasping another bar behind you to hang on! Riding this way is one of the hardest things I have ever physically done. Incredible.

“Thank you for making me aware of how far out my knees stick while sitting on the motorbike sideways like this. I appreciate the information. I also appreciate that last little swerve you did so I could keep my kneecaps. You’re too kind.To the man on the other motorbike who flew by us a little too close for comfort…

“Was that one really necessary?”To whoever built the road we drove on today that decided jarring speed bumps every fifty feet were the latest in road fashion. My lower back thanks him.

“I suppose it would be better if we viewed that as a ‘thank you gift’ and not the other word that comes to mind…”Upon watching the man before me leave various products on an official’s desk as the official signed some sort of business permit.

“Shoulda brought a snack.”While entering our second hour of chasing down paper work.

“I wonder if the ‘woman trick’ of crying, playing a bit dumb and batting eyelashes works as well here as it can in the US… And could I pull it off?”While waiting with one of the office workers who’d just told us we needed another piece of paperwork. I’m not proud of it, ladies.

… So now you know the things that flit through my head on days like today…

Not just any widow, though. The widow in Jesus’ story in Luke 18. You know – the persistent one.

I’ve spent a week traveling through government bureaucracy and paperwork. Strange procedures that have rarely been efficient. That this has been happening in South Asia is, I think, immaterial since government offices everywhere are infamous for their general lack of customer service and common sense. All this frustration and I haven’t even skimmed the ocean of headache possible when dealing with inefficiencies!

If giving up had been an option these past several days – I confess I would have happily quit. But these government offices held the key to remaining in a place I’m called to be. Quitting hasn’t been an available option. Whether I liked it or not – I had to persist.

That’s why I’ve been thinking about the persistent widow of Jesus’ story in Luke 18.She went to a corrupt judge continually asking for justice. I doubt she even expected to get justice from him – but where else could she go? He was the one who had what she needed. Quitting wasn’t an available option. Whether she liked it or not – she had to persist.

And that persistence finally won her justice.

The point of Jesus’ story about prayer is to teach us that we should always pray “and not lose heart” (18:1). So he tells a story in which persistence wins justice from an unjust judge. Then He compares it with our relationship to God. If persistence can win justice from an unjust judge – or pull something valuable from bureaucracy – how much faith can we have in coming to a just judge to whom we have direct access?

It’s so easy to lose heart that Jesus felt a story especially about it was necessary. I (and maybe you?) generally persist only if I have to – if there is no other option but the hard road. If there appears to be an option other than perseverance – I’ll take it. I’m an expert at finding a “solution” that seems to be a better or faster solution to the “inactivity” of persistent prayer.

Oh how foolish I can be! These other voices that promise so much leave me worse than when I listened to them. I find myself right back at the need to persistently listen to the Whisperer in prayer. To cry out to Him until He provides what I need. I have no other options.

So I want to be the Luke 18 widow. I long for that kind of steadfast endurance – that can look at an impossibility and choose to persevere anyway. Because I don’t come to a loveless, unjust judge but to my Lord and my Savior who delights to do what is best for me.

Situations might be impossible – but I must persist in prayer and faith. Because, honestly, to whom else can I go?